Slashdot Mirror
Doom Takes A Shot At Gamers
The Washington Post has a piece discussing the suck that is a movie based on a videogame. From the article: "At the heart of this competitive marriage is this question: How do you successfully turn an interactive experience (playing an Xbox game) into a passive one (watching a movie version of an Xbox game)? For whatever reasons, the recent crop of video game movies -- including 2003's 'House of the Dead' and this year's 'Alone in the Dark,' both helmed by the German director Uwe Boll -- have consistently disappointed gamers. Someone even started a Web site called Uwebollsucks.com. Is it for real? A joke? No one is sure."
The same way you successfully make any other movie: by focusing on the story.
The subject says it
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Yeah, everyone gets hung up on the fact that Uwe Boll makes crap movies about games, rather than just that he makes crap movies, period. He would fail at any genre he tried. He just chose videogames because, as Tycho of PA posits, he hates them.
Bite the hand.
The upcoming Silent Hill Movie doesn't have a single hair of Boll on it, and that's got me hoping.
It's actually got some pretty strong talent behind it. The script's been refined by Roger Avary (who co-wrote Pulp Fiction, True Romance and Reservoir Dogs among others). It's being directed by Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf), who can create pretty amazing atmospheres. And the original Silent Hill sound designer/composer Akira Yamaoka is doing the music. Not to mention starring Sean Bean (Boromir in LotR) and Radha Mitchell (Mary Barrie in Finding Neverland).
Apparently Avary and Gans spent hours playing the game together while coming up with the visuals and finer plot points, and even the special effects guys are saying it's like nothing they've worked on before.
So yeah, enough of my rampant fanboyism. This one has all the marks of breaking this horrible cycle.
vk.
The first Resident Evil movie should get lots of props. It took the RE world, but altered the plot dramatically. It put characters in difficult, complex situations. A woman wakes up in a house full of guns, and is smuggled down into an underground laboratory she didn't know existed trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Characters make mistakes that other characters have to pay for. They choose between killing one of their own or facing death together.
Most of the actors were pretty good. And let's face it, some of the moments, like the laser dicer machine, were pretty cool.
The problem seemed to be that a few of the actors were distractingly bad, and the CGI monster was ATROCIOUS. Laughably bad. It looked like something out of a cheap CGI fan hentai. Really, if there was a moderately competent sense of dread that the director managed to get out of the great scenario writing, it was killed every time that giant plastic tongue came on screen. Sure, the dogs covered in prosciutto were distractingly bad too and should have been cut from the script. But at least they weren't recurring characters.
RE: Apocalypse didn't have as strong a scenario, writing, or anything else really. But it did drive the characters forward and did succeed in making RE: 3 the Movie look really, really appealing. At this point, it would make a great serial drama for the sci-fi channel.
I wish someone would go back and re-do RE:1 with the love and skill it deserved. It was definitely a problem of one or two weak links in an otherwise strong chain.
The ______ Agenda
"A college "gaming club" that meets weekly for an hour to discuss gaming. Wow. I bet those are some popular guys on campus." ... said the guy posting on Slashdot on a Friday night.
"Derp de derp."
"The story?
Have you played Doom? Ever?"
Weeeeelllll think about it. Doom isn't story driven, but at least it's a setting. So how do you turn that into a movie? Use the setting to tell a story. Where'd the monsters come from? Where is there a single marine there? Besides the obvious, what sort of conflicts would this character have? Etc.
Okay, it's still pretty shallow. But you know what? This would still make for an amusing parody. That was the charm of Red Vs. Blue. The world that Halo takes place in is fundamentally absurd. Cars with unlimited ammo? Respawning? The dude that was stuck with a pink uniform? Cute. "I've found armor! Now I can take a bullet to the face!"
"Derp de derp."
This Washington Post article was utter nonsense. It had two things in it that really irritated me. First was the quote from the one student giving the opinion something along the lines of "it's not oscar-worthy" or something like that. I don't know about my fellow slashdotters, but I don't go into many sci-fi movies thinking they have even a chance at scoring even a nomiation. Second was that unnecessary shot at both the Tron movie and game. I loved both very much, not to mention the new incarnation of Tron (Tron 2.0) was in my opinion, a spectacular game.
It's easy to tell this guy is either too young to have a decent opinion, too old and doesn't understand the gaming culture, or just some boob who got assigned to do this story and just concocted whatever mess he was able to find with an "I feel lucky" google search.
I don't expect Doom (the movie) to be great, but why should I? the game had a paper-thin story, but it was still fun for what it was. A mindless killing spree on Mars and in Hell. It looks like that's what the movie is too. I will see it and in all likeliehood, enjoy it.
swanker than you
Face it, even having a strong fan base, gamers will NOT make up most of the market going to see a movie.
Look at Serenity and its loyal fanbase. While the movie was made as a thank you by Joss Whedon for the support his fan's game him for Firefly, the movie barely did 30 million at the box office. The movie was unapoligectially made for the fans of Firefly, and having spoken to a few non-browncoats, few could follow the movie or even enjoy it because they didn't have any Firefly background (there loss of course). As a fan, I loved it, but obviously there was only about 3 million of us that was interested in seeing the movie.
So, trying to make a movie appeal to gamers is the reason why a movie will fail as it will only appeal to a small segment of the viewing public.
The real reason why video game movies suck is because they are generally produced and written by the ADD riddled MTV generation "it" crowd of Hollywood, putting more emphasis on flash and action and no skilled story telling at all, having skipped that lesson back in art school. Yes, basing a movie on the vapid basis of a game really doesn't offer great material for the general movie going public.
Most games have a good backstory, that is, a story that explains why you are suddenly playing the game and why things are trying to kill you and you have to kill them first. After that back story, the game play plot is usually so devoid of content it isn't funny. It's because your adrenaline is pumping and heart pounding and nerves strained to the max that you derive any fun out of the game. But without those stimuli, if you were just to listen to the music soundtrack and the dialogue you would realize how very little story content is found in the game and just how badly it sucks.
People making video game movies try to duplicate that effect, produce a movie that will get your adreniline pumping and heart pounding, so that by the time your jacked up on sugar and caffiene and blown away by the special effects and explosions, you might overlook how there is about 10 minutes of actual dialogue and story stretched painfully into a loud obnoxious 90 minute movie. You will end up appleaing to a small number of customers and end up with low box office receipts.
So I think they have it all wrong. The success of a video game movie ISN'T to duplicate the gaming experience, that is where they have been failing all along. Get a good story, some decent actors, and balance action and energy with something that can fill in 90 minutes of cinema and that will appeal to a more general audience.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
The Washington post is supposed to be a reputable newspaper with a reputation for reliable informaiton. So why was this article not basic fact checked by anybody?
That is, anybody before us.
Come 'on everybody! Let's all pile on to poor Jose Antonio Vargas and point out everything he just plain got wrong.
I'll take the obvious ones.
1. Tron was not a videogame-turned-into-a-movie. It was an original movie about games in general. The videogame followed.
2. Doom cannot be categorized as an Xbox game. Doom has seen basically all of it's sales on the PC for about a dozen years, with the occasional port.
3. Console gaming and movies don't "crave" the 13 - 25 year old male audience. According to the Entertainmetn Software Association the average gamer age is 30, and 43% are female. This skewes a little lower on consoles, but the numbers are far better than the shallow stereotype Vargas passes as journalism. And hasn't box office gold been Date Movies?
Arguable points
1. Doom is not the Granddaddy of FPS games. Wolfenstein 3D is. Wolfenstein 3D begat Doom. There were other FPS games before Wolfie, but it was the first to see real commercial success.
2. Half-Life was based more on classic adventure games than Doom. It certainly didn't "follow the Doom model."
3. He points to Spielberg signing a deal to create 3 franchisable games for EA as a sign that the industry is at a crossroads. However, Spielberg has worked on games many times before, though his LucasArts and Dreamworks Interactive studios. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to see him spend more time trying to alter the craft, but it's still nothing he hasn't done before.
As a side note: Movies are about why you do something. Games are about how you do something. Movies about "how" are hollow, and games about "why" are boring.
The ______ Agenda
Doom has been a mainstay for the PC gaming industry for well over a decade. To this day it is still the pioneer for multiplayer deathmatch and cooperative games in general and as the foundation for first person shooters (FPS). If you play any game, whether it be Metroid for the Gamecube, Halo for the Xbox or any other type of FPS game, you have Doom to thank. Doom launched the FPS genre to stardom. id had previously released the WWII FPS game Wolfenstein but the genre wasnt credited as taking off until Doom came into the picture.
First off, let me say that since Doom for the PC first came out over a decade ago I have been a die-hard fan. I have been a fan since the original shareware version of Doom and will always continue to be a fan due to the fact that it has been the most inspired game that I played back in the 1990s. To this day I still go back and replay the game, both in single-player and multi-player. I am however continuously concerned about any video game movie that graces the big screen. They usually suck, flat out. Doom does draw the first exception I think I have ever seen.
The director, producers and writers seemed to take great care to stick to the storyline as much as humanly possible and took great pride in the story that the Doom franchise presented. With that said, let me give my review.
Doom starts off with a prologue. You see a few scientists running away from "something". This "something" pulls the scientists through ceilings, floors (ala grating them in many pieces) and various other methods of morbid slaughter. Dr. Carmack (obvious homage to the game's creator) sends out a distress call to Earth shortly before becoming food for a giant creature that blasts his office door open.
Enter the marines on Earth after a nice rendition of the Doom logo on the big screen. Sarge (The Rock) takes center stage as the leader of the marine squad being dispatched to the Mars UAC facility. Shortly after assembling his octet-numbered squad we find them looking for the missing scientists and trying to retrieve data for the UAC complex. Only a small portion of the facility has been compromised so there are still a good number of UAC workers on-site.
After a while, Sarge and his crew quickly discover that there is more than meets the eye. There is a serum which ends up being the culprit, turning regular humans into these "monsters" Apparently this effect is selective to only certain people with disdainful DNA. "The Doom Guy" (see how long it takes you to figure out who he is) ends up saving the day with a nice final climax against the obvious if you have played "Doom 3".
The BFG 9000 (Bio Force Gun, yea right) makes a very big appearance several times as the weapon of choice for Sarge.
The storyline isn't stellar but it isn't anything to scoff at. This isn't Friday The 13th Part CXII: Jason In Space or Aliens but the feel is relatively similar if you don't follow the game series. The writing could also have been more refined than presented but it will do for a casual movie.
Except for the serum the movie follows the game (Doom 3) relatively well. Dont expect the good ol flying heads or Cyberdemon: The most you will see are imps and zombies since Hell isnt involved in the storyline (though Hell is referred to continuously).
There is a 5-7 minute segment in the movie where you go into First Person View with "The Doom Guy". It is during this sequence t
Just came back from this. The BFG is labled as the "Bio Force Gun" (you/The Rock sees a schematic on a computer screen). When The Rock actually gets his hands on it though, he walks around it and goes "Big. Fucking. Gun." :)
Its all good
Just saw Doom tonight with friends and mixed company. We had a nice little demographic cut there, ranging from PC game geeks (like myself) to total noobs. And chicks, OMG!
:P
:P), but i'm probably trying to read into something that isn't there. :P
Anyways, if you're not a gamer, have never played Doom, or aren't the least bit interested in gratuitous violence - don't go. One guys girlfriend actually fell asleep during the movie, which was suprising to me given the abundance of loud noises, screaming, and overamped bass. However, if you are a gamer, have played doom, enjoy gratutious violence, and have a sense of humour - then by all means, go see it! You can skip the fancy theatres, just grab as many geeky friends as you can find, load up on your choice of alcohol/drugs/sugar, and HAVE FUN at the theatre. Yes its bad, but its bad in a good way. As long as you can let your expectations go, relax, and just revel in the stupidity, you'll have a blast. I sure did!
Now on to specifics.
Plot & Script: Yeaaaah there isn't much of a plot, as you might expect. 'Something Bad'(tm) happens on Mars. The 'RRTS' (good-guys) teleport over there, more stuff goes bad, people die, etc etc etc, curtain. What plot exists has virtually nothing to do with the videogame - no portal to hell, no 'demons', none of that - though references to hell are scattered throughout. The actual plot ends up being a lot more like Resident Evil. That is to say, bio-engineering + lack of ethics = zombies and other mean things. It's really fairly pointless, and although the movie does try to tackle the idea of Good vs Evil, Right and Wrong (and almost, ALMOST succeeding for a nanosecond), it just ends up getting in the way of shooting more stuff.
The script, unfortunatly, is just as bad. It doesn't even score points for having cool one-liners you can shout at friends later. For the most part its uninspired and just stupidly obvious. That, or its all screaming/yelling. Heck, the only real line I remember from the movie was "He has a condition. He's dead." or something to that effect. Its more like reading a cookbook than it is cool or poetic. Shucks.
Characters: The characters are a little hit and miss. There are about 11 major-ish characters in the movie (8 are marines), all fleshed out to various degrees. Some have lots of screentime but zero backstory (like Sarge), others feel more human (Reaper - this is intentional i'm sure). Some are funny/pitiful (The Kid), others just there for show & violence (Destroyer), and yet others who could have been completely cut out of the script with no ill effects (Mac). A big but expected dissapointment for me was the utterly horrible intro/outro of the characters. You basically have one scene that introduces all of the marines at once, yet doesn't explain jack about who they are. Then throughout the movie, people die, dissapear, and die again. The Samantha character literally crawls out of the movie and is never seen again 5 seconds before the credits. Oh well.
One thing the movie failed to do, or did very well (depending on your point of view), is leave the morality of some of the characters quite obscure until late in the flick. Is Portman evil or just stupid? What motivates Sarge? Is Duke a badass or a tender-heart? I found myself questioning the characters at times, which was both interesting and kind of revealing (asto how pointless many of them really were
Acting: Karl Urban (John 'Reaper' Grimm) is one of my favorite actors, and IMO he does pretty good with such an utterly craptastic script. Doom definitly does not feature some of The Rock's (Sarge) best acting however. A couple lines seem like they were almost flubbed but left in anyways due to the length of a cut. Overall however, he does get the "grrr soldier badass!" feeling out to you. Rosamund Pike (Samantha Grimm) is one of the best actors in the movie IMO, though i'm not sure if its because of
I had fairly low expectations, and there were even some plans in palce to guide me away from any press after the premier if I didn't like the movie, so I wouldn't say something "unproductive", but I was pleasantly surprised.
No, it isn't an oscar movie, but it definitely isn't Super Mario Brothers / Street Fighter / Double Dragon.
I do wish they had kept the true satanic / hellish theme, but I think they did a credible job with their alternate direction.
John Carmack
Action games lack story, obvious view. So bear with me as I try to explain why the original Doom actually had a pretty good one.
It's basically magnified Mary Shelley. You're battling against tides of evil, all unleashed by man's own hubris, his own self-congratulating experimentation. But Frankenstein's been around a while, so this much would just be cliche. So here's the real punch: the game actually makes you feel powerful towards the end of the game. For a while, you actually think you can take on hell and save the world.
Then you see a cute little bunny in a meadow, with its head on a pike. Shudder... The horror didn't stem from the imagery nearly as much as it stemmed from the reflection upon your own impotence before the march of impeneterable Doom (tm) (well, the imagery definitely helped).
Think about that. You're a complete badass with the Biggest Fucking Gun in the solar system. And you're a failure. It wasn't just horrifying because of the visceral graphics, it was also horrifying because of how it completed the arc of the main character, an arc they achieved without having him ever say a meaningful word. A modern Greek tragedy without any dialogue, that's no small accomplishment.
Doom isn't about blowing up monsters, it's about inevitable failure and crushing depression, brought on by the self-same technology that allows you, one tiny soldier, to maybe survive, if just for today. But save the planet? From Hell? Sorry.
Sure, this ignores the sequels, but it's hard enough defending one of the Doom games, so cut me some slack!!!